iOS development notes
Layout
VisualFormat:
V:|-20-[myButton1(>=70@500)]-[MyButton2(==myButton1)]-30-[myButton3]-|
V: - vertical, default: H:
@500 - priority: 0..1000
>=70 - height
- - standard spacing, 8 points
-20- - non standard spacing
Auto Layout Visual Format Language Tutorial.
Best practices
Hit Targets: Create controls that measure at least 44 points x 44 points so they can be accurately tapped with a finger.
Text Size: Text should be at least 11 points so it's legible at a typical viewing distance without zooming.
Contrast: Make sure there is ample contrast between the font color and the background so text is legible.
Spacing: Don't let text overlap. Improve legibility by increasing line height or letter spacing.
^ according to UI Design Do’s and Don’ts.
Don't use case to emphasize because not all writings systems support it. Use size and color instead.
Use dynamic type.
Colors elicit emotions.
Contrast ration: >4.
iOS font: San Francisco.
System fonts:
font-family: -apple-system font: -apple-system-body font: -apple-system-headline font: -apple-system-subheadline font: -apple-system-caption1 font: -apple-system-caption2 font: -apple-system-footnote font: -apple-system-short-body font: -apple-system-short-headline font: -apple-system-short-subheadline font: -apple-system-short-caption1 font: -apple-system-short-footnote font: -apple-system-tall-body
UIFont.systemFont(ofSize: 14)
Design
What are we making?
Making Great Apps for the App Store.
Story boards
Given that Interface Builder is heavily touted by Apple as the ideal solution for building UI, I was very reluctant to ditch it, especially given how wordy programmatic layout used to be. Once I saw how concise and declarative doing auto-layout in Swift could be, I decided to give it a shot. After defaulting to no xibs for about a week, I was totally sold. I feel the maintainability of my view code has gone up considerably, a few blocks of Swift code is much more approachable to a new developer than a tangled mess of Interface Builder constraints, and tracking changes over time in version control is also possible where it really wasn’t before.”
Nick Bonatsakis, iOS Team Lead at Raizlabs
Remove story boards: see How to remove storyboards from your project.
Your First iOS App: 100% Programmatically (Xcode 7.2, Swift 2.1)
IB Free: Living Without Interface Builder and Loving It
Views
Subclasses of UIView: UILabel, UIImageView, UIButton, UITextField, UIWindow.
Data persistance
iOS From Scratch With Swift: Data Persistence and Sandboxing on iOS
App home directory:
- the application bundle
- Documents (user data)
- Library (application data)
- Library/Caches (isn't backed up)
- tmp (should only be used for temporarily storing files, the operating system is free to empty this directory at any time, isn't included in backups)
Data persistence options:
- defaults system
- property list
- SQLite
- Core Data
- iCloud Storage
iOS application publication
Join the Apple Developer Program.
Verify the iOS destribution certificate (Xcode -> Preferences... -> Acounts).
App icons.
Launch screen / image (required).
Xcode menu -> Product -> Archive (change target to Generic iOS Device).
For paid apps - request a contract for paid applications (Agreements, Tax, and Banking in iTunes connect).
Register the app on iTunes Connect.
Marketing
Download on App Store image:
https://developer.apple.com/app-store/marketing/guidelines/#downloadOnAppstore.